Mystery Tower in Kansas

[joep]

Given the 2 sets of side marker lights i'd estimate it to be in the 300-350' range.

Good point, Fieldtech. Now I don't know what to think. It would help to know the face size.

 

[DTV-Chief]

I was wondering why only the lowest dish had an ice shield.

 

[stacker]

Goooooogle Earth shows:
37° 53' 07.86" N
(-)100° 36' 39.098" W

Tell me what you get.

I searched my database for 10 miles around those coordinates. Nada.

Perhaps the FAA stuff is a guise and it's really relaying a Numbers Station.

 

[Nostalgia]

I was wondering why only the lowest dish had an ice shield.

Us Florida boys had to think about that for a second, what the hell is an ice shield? : Oh yeah, read about them in a catalog once.......For this one they were probably just worried about ice on the dish right above it. I'm impressed with the aforementioned torque arms and extra guys at the upper levels. I am guessing this is in tornado alley. Clearly a beefed up mission critical site.

Also this is a pure microwave relay site from what I see, all directional dishes, no omni VHF antennas. Looks to me like open grid dish(es) at the very top? Some two way sites I worked at had FAA stuff there to extend voice comms out into the boonies or up on a high mountain but not this one.

Did the ASRN search out 10km too to allow for NADA differences but just came up with some cell sites. Maybe Stacker is onto something, a black ops site!

 

[TomZ]

I was wondering why only the lowest dish had an ice shield.

Good question Chief. Our ice storms are typically freezing rain (Hail is a different animal). The damage happens when the tower is shedding the ice it collected during the event. Hence, the upper level appurtenances don't need shields.

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

Yup! But we sure need them further down the tower! Here in OKC there are several people that have missed that important step on FM bays and learned the hard way.

 

[stacker]

Yup! But we sure need them further down the tower! Here in OKC there are several people that have missed that important step on FM bays and learned the hard way.

That applied to parking also. At the old KOFM, OKC, which at one time had studios and a parking lot at the base of the channel 5 tower, employees would park their cars toward Britton Road and walk in.

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

Oh yeah! That's kind of a dangerous place when the ice is falling for sure!

 

[stacker]

Oh yeah! That's kind of a dangerous place when the ice is falling for sure!

Yeah, it was kind of cool to watch the old analog TV antenna at the top bend with the sun as the ice dropped from the sunny side.

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

I think that tower is one of the very last of it's kind still standing actually. Needless to say it's probably not the best tower to be under during adverse conditions!

 

[RadeoEngineer]

Ice coming off towers is a very scary thing indeed.

 

[TomZ]

Much like a tornado, they can be seen in daylight but unlike a tornado, they are very silent.

 

[Kent T]

I'd say this is around, ah 350' high, is definitely a microwave site, and likely owned by a 3 Letter Government agency of some kind. And likely serving some kind of covert or FAA related purpose. So, let's say this one is "Close Enough For Government Work"

 

[ChiefEngineer]

The most un natural event on an FAA tower is a turnstyle FM antenna. Seeing the FAA on a tower with a circular set of FM bays is almost an oxymoron.

 

[Kent T]

Weird indeed seeing an FM turnstile on a Air Traffic Control site. And no nrsm visible. But as correctly pointed out, it has a nrsm but just only given on a need to know basis.

 

[TomZ]

What makes one think it's FM?

 

[rfry]

The most un natural event on an FAA tower is a turnstyle FM antenna.

Just to note that a VHF/UHF turnstile (or "turnstyle") antenna is an array of two dipoles with centers crossing at 90-degree angles, where each dipole at each elevation normally is fed with equal currents 90 degrees out of phase so as to produce an ~omni radiation pattern in the horizontal plane.

I'm not sure I could see any such structures in the links that have been posted so far.

RF

 

[stacker]

I agree with TomZ. More likely whatever that is at the top is used to tx and receive AM in the aeronautical band, with the microwave link used to pass the signal to the nearest regional control facility. I think the antenna at the top is part of a repeater system.

 

[w9wi]

The most un natural event on an FAA tower is a turnstyle FM antenna. Seeing the FAA on a tower with a circular set of FM bays is almost an oxymoron.

While I've never heard of anyone doing it, I wonder if really it's a natural thing to do?

Remember the NCE-FM/TV-6 thing? Where a non-commercial FM station can reduce interference to a channel 6 TV station by co-locating the FM antenna with the TV antenna?

If the problem is a FM signal, much stronger than the airnav signal, swamping the airnav receivers, then maybe co-siting the FM station with the airnav transmitter might help the problem?

 

[rfry]

Remember the NCE-FM/TV-6 thing? Where a non-commercial FM station can reduce interference to a channel 6 TV station by co-locating the FM antenna with the TV antenna?

If the problem is a FM signal, much stronger than the airnav signal, swamping the airnav receivers, then maybe co-siting the FM station with the airnav transmitter might help the problem?

Most FCC-licensed FM broadcast stations are permitted a lot more ERP than airnav stations. So even if those FM broadcast systems were co-located with the airnav radiator and were oppositely polarized, that may not be enough to prevent de-sensing an airborne receiver trying to receive a "nearby" frequency -- even if the FM station used a transmit antenna pattern that in reality closely matched the radiation patterns of the airnav system.*

* which would be heroic